3 is for the Triforce
by Allegrezza
Summary: There are 19 steps between her bed and the door. The triangle on the bottom left of the back of her hand is exactly 1 cm taller than the other two. If she is introduced to anyone, it's best not to tell them how many different colored threads are in their collar. It makes her mother less likely to cry when she puts her to bed. - Keeping Wisdom is a game of numbers.
1. Chapter 1

The princess was a bit weird.

She'd heard people say that. She'd also heard them say that it was a polite way to put it, though it didn't seem very polite to her. How could anyone say anything so inaccurate? 'A bit'. She shuddered. So imprecise. So meaningless. Her life was made up of facts and rules, ones that didn't change and that made sense. That was orderly. That was polite.

It was 19 steps from her bed to her door, for example. 348 from her door to the breakfast table each morning. Her mother always glanced at her no less than three times each morning while she divided her food into four sections on her plate. All of her clothes for the first day of the week were blue. The last day was green. The other days didn't matter, except for Holy Days, when she wore white, because it seemed like the proper thing to do. The ribbons in her hair were a gift from her father and no one was allowed to touch them or take them out. Her handmaiden always knocked twice, unless she was tired.

Those were the rules. There were a lot of others.

She had to end a journey somewhere with an even number of steps, even when it meant backtracking a little. She washed her hands before and after every single meal. She got in on the same side of the bed every night, and never left her shoes on the floor.

Some rules she had not created, but she followed them anyway.

Every morning for four hours she was to study the history of Hyrule, its laws, and its people. Every afternoon for two hours, she was to practice her embroidery, her manners, dancing, or another court function. Every evening for one hour she got exercise with Impa, who was the only one who waited for her to count all of her paces and touch all of the laces on her workout clothes before they started.

Some rules were secret.

Sometimes, she stole things to put in her secret box, where they'd be safe. Her father's old quill. Her mother's glove. A small painting of a grandmother she'd never met but was named after.

If she was introduced to anyone, it was best to count her steps inside of her head, not tell them how many colored threads were in their collar, and say as little as possible. It made her mother less likely to cry when she put her to bed at night.

Once a month, during an embroidery lesson that her instructor always fell asleep during, she tiptoed out, snuck to her parents' closet, and tried on the crown that was to be given to her on her 16th birthday. It was always little less big each time, and though she would have liked to measure for accuracy, she settled for looking at herself in the mirror and imagining being crown princess of Hyrule.

It was still exactly 7 years, 9 months, and 17 days away, but Zelda didn't mind counting down the days.

She was good at that.


	2. Chapter 2

Zelda is two years and ten months old when her father Daphnes Nohausen Harkinian decides she is very smart. She is speaking already, surprisingly coherently, and watches everything with wide, serious blue eyes. His wife is more pleased about the triforce on her hand, claiming that little Zelda is blessed by the goddesses- maybe she would have great magic! maybe she is destined to marry a man who would lead Hyrule to a golden era!- and is sure she could do no wrong, but the king is quite satisfied with the progress he can understand, rather than the dubious blessing he doesn't.

Zelda is three years and seven months old when she stops talking. Mostly. She answers when she is directly addressed, though sometimes one has to get her attention or repeat themselves, but she stops the toddler babble and the constant questions. She also doesn't cry, laugh, or any of the other expressive things they are fairly certain children should be making. She seems more content to observe. Her unnatural stillness frightens away a string of nursemaids, but her mother is not deterred. That triforce meant that everything is going to be just fine.

Zelda is five years and four months old when her parents realize that all the muttering she does under her breath is counting. Counting her steps, counting the peas on her plate, counting the portraits in the hall, counting the number of dresses in her closet. She can't count very high yet, but she recycles the numbers she does know to make bigger sums, and they can not get her to stop.

Zelda is six years and six months old when Impa suggests to the royal couple that Zelda take up the training of the Sheikah. They are a dying race, but their strict mental and physical disciplines could help Zelda order her mind. Zelda's mother refuses. No daughter of hers will be taught to fight or use the black arts of an inferior race. Daphnes grimaces at her (borderline racist) words but he will not go against his wife's wishes, and after the so-recent civil war, he cannot have rumors spreading across the kingdom that his own daughter is involved in the questionable Sheikah arts. He agrees to an hour of simple physical training a day, for her health, and Impa does not press the subject.

Zelda is seven years and one month old when she hears one of the servants' children call her weird for the first time and get hurriedly shushed by an anxious looking cook. She answers that he always leans to the left when he walks and has 37 freckles on his nose, and he scrunches it at her before he is shepherded away. She is seven years and eleven months old before she realizes that 'weird' is an insult.

She is seven years and eleven and a half months when she notices that her mother is sick a lot, and it seems to get worse when Zelda is in the room.

Zelda is eight months, four months old when her mother stops tucking her in at night and starts going to bed earlier than her own daughter, looking drawn and pale and pinched. She is eight years, five months old when her mother stops looking at her all together and starts yelling at her silent father at almost every meal. This continues for sixteen days until Daphnes gives a resigned sort of sigh and leads his wife away from the dinner table early one night.

She is eight years, ten months, and 15 days old when her mother tearfully announces that she will have a little brother or sister soon, and her sibling will be 'completely all right, we won't have to worry about this one at all' while Daphnes tries to tell her to rest. Her smile looks a little scary, and Zelda hides from her manic energy in the library for precisely four hours and 12 minutes until dinnertime instead of asking how long 'soon' is.

Zelda is eight years, ten months, and 16 days old when she catches the servants clearing away bloodied sheets and she is told that she won't be able to see her mother again. She is given a label for the event- a miscarriage, very unfortunate, we're very sorry dear- and she files it away, because everything needs a name, but she will never go back into her parents' room ever again.

On her ninth birthday, Impa starts teaching her how to meditate without the king's permission, and during the lesson Zelda doesn't feel the urge to obsessively count her own heartbeat or the number of breaths her father takes in an hour for the first time since she'd watched them lower her mother's body, in its splendid coffin, into the ground.

A/N: The action starts next chapter! I think.


End file.
